These are the archives for the week ending 18th March 2005
Afghan elections delayed
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said that the parliamentary elections, originally planned for May, will now be held in September.
Speaking in Kabul after meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, President Karzai said that the delay was due to "technical matters". Rice said in her opening statements that the elections will be held later in the year, apparently not aware that the date wasn't yet made official.
Karzai then announced the delay, saying that the elections would be held in September. He said that he was informed of the postponement by the chairman of Afghanistan's election commission
Al Jazeera 17/3/05
Corruption threatens Iraq
Rather than the "shining beacon of democracy" U.S. President Bush envisioned, Iraq could become "the biggest corruption scandal in history," Transparency International warned yesterday in its annual report on global corruption.
The Berlin-based non-governmental organization accused the United States of being "a poor role model in how to keep corrupt practices as bay" and warned that even worse waste and corruption is yet to come.
"It is likely that we have not yet seen the full scale of corruption in Iraq for the simple reasons that much of the anticipated expenditure (on reconstruction) has yet to begin," said Reinoud Leenders and Justin Alexander, co-authors of a case study on Iraq that the group commissioned for the report.
Globe and Mail.com 17/3/05
Italy withdraws troops - or perhaps not
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been accused of bowing to pressure from the United States after he apparently backtracked on an announcement that Italian troops would start withdrawing from Iraq this September.
"It's a world record. The withdrawal of an announced withdrawal in half a day," said centre-left leader Francesco Rutelli.
Berlusconi told a television chat show earlier this week that he wanted to begin reducing Italy's 3,000-strong contingent in September, but he later said he had never set a fixed date for any pullout.
"It was only my hope ... If it is not possible, it is not possible. The solution should be agreed with the allies," he told reporters on Wednesday evening.
Opposition politicians lambasted Berlusconi's change of tack, which came just hours after he received a phone call from U.S. President George W. Bush. Top selling Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and la Repubblica agreed Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had forced Berlusconi to retract his earlier statement.
"Bush and Blair put a brake on Berlusconi," Corriere said in its front page headline, while la Repubblica's headline said: "Bush and Blair stop Berlusconi". Berlusconi himself denied any U-turn and accused the foreign press of misinterpreting his remarks.
Swiss Info 17/3/05
Iraq War Wasn't Worth It
In a surprising finding that comes after the successful Iraqi election and some decline in U.S. combat deaths, a clear majority of Americans now feel the war in Iraq was not "worth fighting," according to a new Washington Post/ABC News Poll.
Asked if the war was worth it, considering all the costs and benefits to the United States, 53% said no and 45% said yes. By a 41% to 28% margin the sample said the United States is now in a weaker position in the world vs. a stronger one.
Asked about troop levels, 44% said the number of troops in Iraq should be decreased, 37% said kept about the same, and 15% want an increase. Two out of three said the Bush administration "does not have a clear plan for eventually withdrawing most U.S. troops from Iraq."
These findings come despite wide public belief, according to the same poll, that the Iraq people are better off today than before the war and that there is a better chance for democracy spreading in the Middle East.
Editor & publisher 16/3/05
Iraq's parliament opens but no unity
Iraq's nascent democracy entered a new phase with the opening of a new 275-member national assembly but politicians failed to form a unity government ahead of the historic session.
As the milestone 90-minute session began, a series of explosions rattled the sealed off enclave of US and Iraqi institutions, where the ceremony was being held on Wednesday.
Iraq's security forces were on high alert in Baghdad, patrolling the streets and shutting down at least five bridges on the Tigris river that divides the capital, in a bid to stave off rebel attacks for the historic session, two years after the fall of Saddam's regime.
In the gathering, which was largely ceremonial amid the reigning political stalemate, leaders staked their positions in what amounted to the opening bell in a debate among Islamists, secular Iraqis, Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis on their main task of writing a permanent constitution.
Channel News Asia 16/3/05
Italy to withdraw troops
United States ally Italy said it would start withdrawing its soldiers from Iraq in September, in a fresh blow to US President Bush's shrinking coalition.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of Bush's most vocal supporters, said he was in talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair about a total exit strategy from Iraq, adding people in both countries wanted their troops to return home.
Despite strong opposition at home, Berlusconi sent some 3000 troops to Iraq - the fourth largest foreign contingent after US, British and South Korean forces. But pressure has mounted to withdraw the troops since intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was killed by US soldiers shortly after rescuing an Italian hostage.
Earlier yesterday, Bulgaria's President said his country should withdraw its 450 troops from Iraq by the end of this year after a Bulgarian soldier was accidentally killed by US forces.
The New Zealand Herald 17/03/05
Israel will attack Iran only as 'last resort'
Israel will only take military action against Iran as "a very last resort" to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons, Ephraim Sneh, a member of the Israeli parliament said yesterday.
"We have to ensure that other steps, diplomatic steps, are carried out first. Here the United States plays a leading role and I hope it will fulfil it" he said.
Guardian 14/3/05
Oil companies watch hopefully
As Iraq's political factions move closer to forming a new government, the world's oil leaders are dusting off their Baghdad contact books with an eye toward lucrative production agreements.
Through 15 years of conflict and sanctions, major oil companies never lost sight of Iraq's massive proven reserves - the world's second-largest after Saudi Arabia. Oil's top three - BP PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp. and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos. - recently struck cooperation or training deals with Iraq. 20 companies have offered Iraq's interim government training for oil personnel, free geological studies or other technical assistance.
The U.S.-led postwar administration and the provisional government that followed lacked the democratic or legal legitimacy to approve full-blown production deals - which typically guarantee companies a share of oil extracted from fields they invest in. Iraq's crude is badly needed, both to fund the country's reconstruction and to feed global demand - as the past year's soaring oil prices testify.
Business Week on-line 14/3/05
Afghan warlords implicated in abuse
A human rights group Saturday urged Afghanistan to tackle the rampant abuse of power by warlords and militias who are allegedly involved in the widespread rape of women and children.
US-based Human Rights Watch said the Afghan government, the United Nations and NATO member states had not done enough to check the power of local strongmen who hold sway outside the capital Kabul. "Warlords and their troops in many areas have been implicated in widespread rape of women and children, murder, illegal detention, forced displacement, human trafficking and forced marriage," the rights group said ahead of a meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva next week.
"Local military and police forces, even in Kabul, have been involved in arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, extortion, torture, and extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects," it added.
Pakistan Daily Times 13/3/05
Ukraine begins withdrawal from Iraq
Ukraine withdrew 150 servicemen from Iraq on Saturday, starting a gradual pullout that officials have said will be completed by October.
Earlier this month, President Viktor Yushchenko and top defence officials ordered a phased withdrawal of Ukraine's 1,650-strong contingent from the US coalition in Iraq.
Ukraine has lost 17 soldiers in Iraq, and the deployment is deeply unpopular among people in the former Soviet republic.
News24.com 12/3/05
Guantanamo jail switch planned
The Pentagon is planning to transfer half the inmates at Guantanamo Bay to prisons in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen.
The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, has urged the State Department to ratchet up the pressure on unresponsive allies to take custody of the prisoners, and relieve the Bush administration of maintaining a detention facility which has increasingly come to be viewed as a burden.
The latest plans are widely seen as reaction to court judgments which have made it increasingly untenable for the U.S. to carry on using the Cuban base for its original purpose: a vast holding pen in which the prisoners in the so-called war on terror could be held indefinitely beyond the scrutiny of the U.S. courts.
Recent revelations from freed British inmates about torture and sexual humiliation at Guantanamo have also made it increasingly awkward for the Bush administration to maintain the detention facility in its present form. Human rights organisations believe the Pentagon is anxious to rid itself of the burden of housing hundreds of prisoners who are no longer believed to hold any intelligence value in the war on terror. Many of the prisoners at Guantanamo have been held without recourse to the courts since autumn 2001.
But any plans of dismantling Guantanamo have been shelved, as the Bush administration has no intention of doing so. In fact, it is seeking Congressional approval for $41.8m to build a permanent facility and security fence.
Al Jazeera 12/3/05